Found - Rabbi Samuel Steinhaus

[Music] the day and welcome in our last lecture you've been you've been all over you've been through the American scene seen through it you've been through other societies and cultures you've been up and down highways and byways of Europe you've been to India and you've seen through the facade you've seen it all what are you looking for what is it that you I all of us what what what's the missing ingredient is it just meaningfulness alone or is there more to it what is it friends before we try to answer this question I need a definition I need to define the word relationship what is a relationship well we have to have guide the relationship relationship parent-child friends the most intense and strongest relationship that we know of is when two people husband and wife Hassan and Carla find each other and build a relationship to last what is a relationship is it love that love is an ingredient and relationship within a question about it but is it love not by bread and on does man live not by love alone does a relationship develop proof hmm look at the day's world there's never been generation a generation like ours where love has been more bandied about entertained with crude about by singers preached about in the houses of threat and where is it where does it lead us what kind of relationships 50 percent divorce rate doesn't square love is an ingredient but it's not the only one so what will you say commitment yeah commitment is very important that's it now there's another very major ingredient and the Hebrew word describes it better than the English translation and it's called in Hebrew covered covered the word covered really means respect honor but that doesn't taking my hat off to somebody and saying good morning that doesn't describe covered at all respect and honor in the Hebrew translation in the cover translation means giving another human being the space that he deserves the appreciation that he's entitled to or she is entitled to it means giving them a recognition of who they are and what it's that they want in life and doing it willingly and because it's the right thing to do the translation of the word covered interestingly is connected to the Hebrew word covered which means heavy do you wait to that person and the opposite of covered in Hebrew is come to make light of another person's covered which means he doesn't get what he deserves and it's obvious that covered depends on each individual where he's at the father deserves a different kind of covered to a nodding acquaintance and someone who's helped you a lot deserves more covered than somebody who has and so it goes covered love and covet and commitment that's not enough because when we say commitment what do we mean well I'm prepared under all circumstances to sustain this relationship if it's a marriage but what's to keep it in place why should I do this because I want the relationship you know what's gonna happen over time the commitment becomes habit at best and becomes neglected a twist why should it be there so there's another Hebrew word that describes a relationship that's a very very powerful word and it's difficult to translate it into English without actually really getting the feel of what it means you know that the baby eight days old has a bris well I think a bris is a circumcision it's not a bris is through circumcision we arranged a bris the bris is a Hebrew word Brit which means an arrangement we do parties where each is totally committed and the taking rather to commit themselves to the relationship as being bigger than themselves and totally binding now totally binding a love relationship surely doesn't need to have a reinforcement to be totally binding but yes it does and let's understand full of the psychology of our relationships healthier relationships are really built if you're going to build a relationship on love alone and the love is strong love is a very powerful emotion in the human breast but love is an emotion and we're not only emotional beings we are thinking beings we have other feelings personal feelings and unless we're on a very high level of human existence these thoughts and these feelings eventually are going to surface and when they do they're going to challenge in one way or another that total commitment that I was so filled with initially because it's true I'm in love with this lady but business is business or my commitment of time doesn't allow me to pay her enough attention or a thousand and one other reasons why what was on the front burner burning strongly is now on the middle of the back burner and we know of jaded relationships all over the show so that love and covered and these words all these beautiful words all eventually often sell off get relegated to second or third or even though knows where place because why because something was not there to keep it in place what is the nature of the hebrew wedding the torah word of bris bris means to undertake to connect myself now to this relationship in such a way that whatever happens to me I mean whatever Oh Claire's whatever ideas or whatever things will interfere to challenge this is it I have undertaken a bris and this bris means a union that cannot be broken and it's not just I decide all the time to commit myself to it but I have actually force myself put myself in the situation where I am now part and parcel of it and no matter what I mean strange as it sounds and I'm romantic as it sounds it is the foundation of every healthy marriage of course love but love like all seeds needs a bed a plant bed a place where it grows it means something in which it can it can an area in the field where it can grow otherwise it's just gonna wither and die become still say said that a relationship needs these ingredients just like the seed in the ground needs water it needs feeding it needs Sun needs rain it needs a good quality soil it needs all these things to make it grow that is how relationships are built and if we ask ourselves a same question this is how relationships are built and what is the definition of a good relationship there again it's not cooing all the time a good relationship means that the underpinnings are strong and the daily commitment on a daily basis is a conscious world putting the other one where they really belong terms of my feeling to her or they terms of his need or hers terms of funnily enough in older couples one sometimes sees this better and I'm going to mention here my own parents may they live long and be well in the 90s how my father puts my mother's needs before his own and vice versa a model a model of a relationship all the other ingredients are there but it's got it's a building it's got a foundation it's got underpinnings it's got walls it's got a roof it's got it's it's it's a reality and it's it's indivisible it's strong and it's happy and who benefits from it everybody you don't lose any of the pleasures of life on the contrary life becomes one pleasure and it's win-win all the time it's a relationship it's what we're looking for in life not talking now in religion I'm talking about him in our connections now in our relationships now wonder that God decreed it out of that happy Union come more beneficiaries from this beautiful relationship and they're called children and they thrive because the atmosphere of the relationship is right for more happy relationship does that mean there are no problems no it doesn't does it mean that there is the desire to overcome and deal with them yes it does and relationships will be tested sooner or later something will happen in a very good relationship to put it on the test might be another person it might be another situation and when we've got it right and we overcome those tests that one is yet stronger and it becomes a bond designed by the Creator to last a lifetime let's not get this illusion the divorce is anything other than amputation amputation does exist in the medical field for emergencies but everybody recognizes it as a absolute last resort God provides for divorce in the Torah but it's an amputation it's very it's painful and it's very difficult and it's not the plan so we spoken about relationships now back back to our first question what are we looking for when we were running around all over your appointment you're at home wherever it was what are we looking for friends we are looking for a relationship and with home with God without shame and remember our definition relationship doesn't just mean occasional highs or some kind of blind Nirvana in which we live and it's the same as drugs alcohol or anything which gives you a sense of reality but in real in real terms is not real it's just an illusion or a sense of what but it's not where it's at relationships and the human plane or where it's at relationship to God is where it's at what we are really looking for isn't for something to replace normal life but to take normal life and give it meaning a relationship gives meaning a relationship to others is very meaningful and have an important in life but it's not the whole story even to one's own wife it's not the whole story it serves as a beautiful model of what a relationship can be like between man and God and God and man the son of songs share Hashim all the songs in the Torah are holy says the great rabbi akiva the song of songs is holy of holies it describes the relationship as planned by the Creator with his beloved children what we are looking for is a relationship but don't forget wait a moment a relationship has to be mutual you can't make a one-sided relationship doesn't work totally both sides who want and commit themselves to this relationship and God didn't speak to any other nation into the Jewish nation he wants all his children to feel beloved Jew and Gentile alike but the terms and understandings of how to build this relationship were not communicated through any other channel then through the Torah at Sinai itself Bar None anyone else who claims to have it doesn't and can be demonstrated as not having we have in our hands through the Torah Hashem God's side of what he wants in the relationship and that his expectation is towards a relationship it's someone who can relate happily to God that is a therapist when he prays he knows he's talking to the creator himself but we said cavort we said giving that other one his space give God his space recognize when you face him that he are facing the creator of the world standing all in his presence or and joy because it's a relationship if you don't stand in all then you're not giving him his space you're just presuming that your picture what he is is what the reality is it's not he is created so there's Europe there's a sense of all he's the creator and he's listening to my prayer and he wants that relationship as I do and then I follow his instructions integrity takes effort morality takes effort his instructions for them take effort honesty they will take effort but they're worth it in investing in a relationship we invest in our marriages we invest and we successful if we don't and presume it's gonna happen it what their relationship is what we are looking for and the reality of a relationship is what we're going to find if we follow the way it's designed and how do we know Hashem God provided us with these instructions at Sinai and as recorded in the Talmud in the Mishnah and as practice for thousands of years by you and I our parents grandparents great-grandparents going right back it's not you but it stood the test of time it's real and it actually does bring us all that we're looking for and more as every true relationship should it brings us what we were looking for in terms of the occasional highs of appreciating whitish Abbas's what the beauty of holiness is and at the same time it also tells us is better and better and better human beings and gives us a sense of achievement on a daily basis and with a knowledge and confidence that our future our own our families our nation's is assured because that is the sense and the power that lies in a genuine relationship and here we are talking of none other than the relationship that is for all of us to access and to achieve and to give nervous and pleasure to our Creator may his name be blessed [Music]